WOW and homo-/bisexuality

[oDDity]

Umm,,so, what about someone who's on 'the scale' at 99% 'prone to developing homsexual tendencies', wasn't that person then born homosexual?

What's the difference between that and saying it's genetics?

And what is it that makes people born more or less prone to homosexuality, if not their genes?

[Fingernail]

Listen, did I say it was totally independent of genes? I did not.

 

I said it was a mixture.

 

Besides, it feels ridiculous talking about what we think homosexuality is caused by. Correct me if I'm wrong but I doubt any of us have done much genetic or social research into the matter, or even read much beyond the odd dumbed-down article. I think we're probably dealing with issues that are far more complex than we're allowing for, or could ever allow for in an internet debate.

 

So that's enough for me.

[Macsen]

So that's enough for me.

Looks like you're carrying the 'Give Up In Arguments Against oDDity When No Point Of View Can Be Proven To Be Correct' gene!

[Domarius]

lol

[sparhawk]

Besides, it feels ridiculous talking about what we think homosexuality is caused by. Correct me if I'm wrong but I doubt any of us have done much genetic or social research into the matter, or even read much beyond the odd dumbed-down article. I think we're probably dealing with issues that are far more complex than we're allowing for, or could ever allow for in an internet debate.

 

Nevertheless it is fun to discuss it.

[oDDity]

I'll tell you what an interesting experiement would be.

If you could manufacture a totally male homosexual society, and bring up some male babies in that environment. THey would have no knowlege of women whatsoever, and only be taught gayness, and then at 16 they'd be introduced to girls for the first time.

What would happen?

Of course, it would totally fuck up the lives of these concerned, but science always has its price.

IT's pretty obvious that the results would be bisexuals.

You can add but you can't subtract.

THat is, you can't teach a heterosexual born child to stop being attracted to women, but you can teach it to start being attracted to men. You can't teach a homosexual born child to stop being attacted to men, but you can teach it to start being attracted to women.

[Macsen]

Hot off the press-ish.

 

oDDity, who gave you permission to change your Munch avatar to Father Jack?

[oDDity]

- I was getting tired of the blatant plagiarism.

- Munch came to be in a dream and told me to stop it.

- It reminded me too much of the Home Alone movie poster.

 

Re: That link - I told you so.

[Macsen]

I dunno, 'moody guy in a cloak' is a pretty unoriginal avatar. When you were chatting to Vadrosaul I had to keep checking the names to see who's who.

 

A smiling sponge would be much better IMO.

 

P.S. I think that Home Alone poster is based on the Scream.

 

P.P.S. You didn't 'told me so' anything, I know all.

[oDDity]

I'd rather have my own unoriginal than someone else's original..

 

No, you don't know anything about homosexuality, you were arguing the complete opposite, you said 'they probably catch it from the Jews or niggers'

They probably catch it from the Jews or niggers.

 

P.S. I think that Home Alone poster is based on the Scream.

Really? Ya think? I would have put a bet on Munch having copied the poster via some kind of time machine.

[Macsen]

I don't recall saying that, but since you quoted me it must be the case.

 

No, you don't know anything about homosexuality

I'd rather keep it that way. You, on the other hand, know all about it?

[oDDity]

Ahh, so we're down to playground level are we?

Ok then:

yes, I know all about it, I learned it from your dad.

[Macsen]

And a necrophiliac to boot.

[Domarius]

Gawd guys, make me laugh out aloud in class why don't you.

[oDDity]

You burst out laughing because you found out Macsen's father is dead?

That's pretty low, even from an Australian. I had a bit of a smigger myself, but I had the decency not to boast about it.

[Macsen]

The buried dead pop out in Australia afterwards. That hole's much deeper than 6 feet, son.

 

Yeah, I belive in reinc-oz-nation.

[Domarius]

Looks like this discussion is really "degenerating".

[Unskilledlaborer]

I wonder about one this subject from time to time too.

 

 

I noticed some of the other comments earlier.

 

So here goes.

 

I have heard it said by my psychology teacher that according to some survey or other 80% of homosexual men admit to being homosexually molested as children.

 

My teacher then put it to the class for discussion when a woman began telling how her brother is a homosexual: How herself and her brother where both molested as children, and how she is not a homosexual and her brother is. She finished her story by stating that she and her brother had both been molested by a older male relative. She claims that homosexuality must be genetic because both her and her brother where molested by the same man and hs did not become a homosexual from her experiences….

 

I didn’t say it there because she was so red in the face after revealing to our class that she and he brother had been sexed up by a relative. BUT I have got to say that I believe her reasoning is faulty. She claimed that she was not a homosexual and that her brother believes the molestation had nothing to do with his homosexual tendencies.

I have got to disagree with her. Just reviewing the evidence of her story and the topic of discussion 80% of homosexual men admit to being molested as children. I must say a male and not a female molested her. Her brother’s mulestation was a homosexual one. How could she come to the conclusion that her brother’s molestation had nothing to do with becoming homosexual?

I think ( If its still ok to do that) that she feels she must deny the obvious. She must make herself believe her brother has no choice. In her mind her brother must have no choice because if he did have a choice why would he chose to be so different. Why would he choose to hurt the family? In her mind she must deny that choice was his to make. She must because other wise she has got to face the fact that (IN HER MIND) her brother was a perverted freak. Not my mind you but in hers.

I wonder if homosexuals do just as I would do if I wanted people to accept the strange things I think. Do they engineer there answers to society just as we all would if we enjoyed some strange activity.

Lets say I liked dwarf tossing. I mean I really liked dwarf tossing. But society said dwarf tossing was freakish. If society said it was ok to toss dogs or kids would I want to change to a dog tosser or a kid tosser. NO I would want society to change. In many ways I would be just as satisfied tossing kids or dogs but I would be missing that one feeling I get when I toss a ugly little dwarf. So either I live a lie, change society, or change my stubborn pig headed dwarf tossing ways.

What is easier to do change your wants or change the system that says those wants are not OK? it seems like it would be easier to change your self right no because when you change yourself you got to contend with the most important person you know that is YOU. Why change what you want when you can be selfish and ask every one else to change the rule for what is acceptable.

[Domarius]

Well either way you look at it, he had no choice. Either he was born that way, or his uncle messed up his brain.

 

BTW my last post there was a pun

Talking about death... degeneration... get it? ...heh.

[OrbWeaver]

I have heard it said by my psychology teacher that according to some survey or other 80% of homosexual men admit to being homosexually molested as children.

 

You can find a survey that will prove anything you want. I do not believe for a minute that this statistic is true in the general case, in fact it sounds a lot like the sort of Freudian propaganda that certain classes of "psychologist" are all too fond of.

[oDDity]

That doens't make much sense. If anything, being abused by a queer as a child would put you off the idea of homosexuality, it's certianly not going to 'make you gay'.

[Domarius]

A good psychologist will tell you that there's no way of knowing how it will affect someone.

 

Some children who are violently abused, grow up to be violently abusive to their children. Others, go the opposite path and are against any form of physical punishment.

[Ishtvan]

Let's try a little experiment: Picture yourself having sex with a member of the sex you're not attracted to, in vivid detail. (If you're Bi, I guess you can't do this. Sorry.) What do you feel? Personally, I feel some visceral revulsion. I certainly don't choose to feel that way on any conscious level, it's just a gut reaction.

 

Can I choose away that gut reaction at this point in my life? No. That makes it hard for me to believe that gays can just choose to be not-gay if they want.

 

Is it possible that my gut aversion to sexing the same sex was imprinted by society and upbringing? Maybe, but I don't remember ever thinking that men were hot and then having someone tell me that was wrong. Maybe you could argue that my parents had a heterosexual relationship, so I was exposed to that as the "norm" from the start, but that seems like a pretty weak argument.

 

There are plenty of gays that grow up in heterosexual families that actively discourage gay-ness and in a society that discourages it, never being exposed to pro-gay thoughts from others until much later in their life, yet they still end up gay. That would seem to negate the "conditioning" argument, unless the factor is whether you have the willpower to avoid subconscious conditioning that effects you to the point of changing your subconscious arousal reactions.

 

On the other hand, you've got historical examples of different societal values, like the whole Spartan Eros thing where many men were at least bi. To quote a history major I knew, "In parts of the ancient world, homosexuality was not frowned upon as long as you weren't the bitch. It was like, 'wow, that guy's so cool, he can get even a man to be his bitch!'" It does make you wonder.

 

Instinctively though, I feel that I would feel the same reaction if I had spent the formative years of my life alone in a cave. I guess if it's subconscious though, I wouldn't know.

 

It would be interesting to see what happens if we can someday create a female sex cell from a male person's DNA and vice-versa, to let homosexual couples have children with DNA from both. If it's a recessive gene, you'd expect more homosexuals to come out of that mating. (I'm sure people have already tried to track the genetics in other ways, although it's hard to get good data if people stay in the closet)

[Ishtvan]

And what about fetishes? There are plenty of cases of people living with some fetish for years without knowing anyone else was aroused by that (just read a few of Dan Savage's Savage Love columns ). Then all of a sudden, they find out there's some community of people with the exact same fetish. Did these people all happen to have some formative experience with, say, lederhosen or Mickey Mouse that affected their psyche in the exact same way?

 

To me it seems more logical that some people are just genetically predisposed to being aroused by different things. I mean even psychology could eventually be reduced down to neuroscience, and the development of our brain is certainly influenced by genetics.

 

I don't know anything about psychology, but if you're arguing that groups with some fetish all had a shared reaction to some stimulus for some psychological reason, and other people when exposed to the same stimuli over the course of their lives did not develop the fetish, isn't that implying that the fetish group have something in common neurologically?

[OrbWeaver]

I think the "gay conditioning" stuff is basically an attempt by the homophobics to deny that homosexuality has any kind of natural and/or genetic basis, as this would undermine their superstitious belief that homosexuality is "unnatural" and "wrong".